Seven Stars roadworks: A resident writes

Jonathan Prynn, Consumer Affairs Editor of the Evening Standard, is a local resident affected by the roadworks which are still causing almighty snarl ups in W12. I should know, coming back in a taxi from Hammersmith the other day I spent at least £2.50 more waiting for those lights to change. Mr Prynn however has the greater misfortune of living on one of the rat runs the roadworks have caused.

He says this:

"..yesterday afternoon, I sat in my front room with the proverbial clipboard and recorded the number of unwelcome internal combustion engines invading my space. In the 60 minutes from 4.30 to 5.30pm I was astonished to count 219 cars, 40 vans, 19 taxis or minicabs, 22 motorbikes and three heavy lorries. A total of more than 300 vehicles all told. In a single hour, in a narrow short street that Usain Bolt could run the length of in less than ten seconds. I should think in normal conditions we get about one tenth of that, perhaps a car every two minutes.

I would estimate that around half the wheeled intruders were exceeding the 20 mph speed limit, several drivers were illegally using mobile phones, three or four more sounded their horns when the traffic flow got snarled up and there were a number of audible uses of that driver's default salutation "get out of the f*****g way" or equivalent. Earlier in the day I was appalled by the speed at which cars were moving while kids were flooding the street on their way to three nearby primary schools.

Given that this traffic tide starts before 7am and does not let up until gone 11pm, that's around 5000 cars, vans and lorries a day, seven days a week. Over the 60 plus days of the works ( assuming it finishes on times on 13 March) we will have had around 300,000 vehicles down our street, perhaps a quarter of a million more than we could have expected."

Now read on